


to be sound or to feel saved again

by groundedsaucer (coasterchild)



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Canon Typical Violence, F/M, PTSD, Post canon, Post-Phantom of the Opera, Questionable mental health practices of the 19th century, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:08:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24134092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coasterchild/pseuds/groundedsaucer
Summary: Dearest Christine,I want you to know first that I did not leave this letter for you by my own hand. I instructed a mutual acquaintance of ours--I do believe you can imagine who--to leave it at your door. I say this because I hope that you’ll understand, and believe, that our encounter three days ago was as much a surprise to me as it was to you. The look of your frightened face haunts me, Christine, and I wish never to be the cause of it again. I have no intention to impose upon your life, and any comfort you draw from that fact will be comfort to me, although I realize I hardly deserve it. You always did have the more charitable heart.Regards,Your GhostOr: What if a sexy nightmare of a man engaged in a little self-reflection and made an effort to be generally less awful to be around? What if our lady protagonist got to assert her boundaries and have a little agency, as a treat?
Relationships: Christine Daaé/Erik | Phantom of the Opera
Comments: 39
Kudos: 143





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is based 100% on the 25th Anniversary production at the Royal Albert Hall. Book canon, LND, and other productions are largely ignored. You don't HAVE to imagine Ramin, Sierra, and Hadley's performances as you read this, but I think it helps. 
> 
> Period inaccuracies are due to very cursory research. Don't worry about it.
> 
> First chapter is not nsfw, but I promise it'll get there.
> 
> Thank you to Melanie. She dragged me into Phantom hell, and without her encouragement and enthusiasm this would have never been finished, let alone posted.

A year after the fall of the Populaire, Christine had begun to feel something like her old self. Or, if not that, she had at least begun to feel comfortable in her new life. 

From the outside, perhaps it wasn’t so different. She was still, as far as she could tell by the society pages and the friendly--pitying?--smiles of acquaintances, a young talent full of potential, poised to take the musical world by storm-- _if only there hadn’t been that awful business with that old opera house, and did you hear the place was haunted? My word, the things some people will believe, Mademoiselle Daaé, or is it Vicomtesse now?_

It had become easier to speak about in the months following the whole awful affair. Eventually Christine settled on a simplified version of the story--none of it a lie, except by omission--she could comfortably share in polite company, and before long the racing of her heart subsided when it was brought up. 

Occasionally--less so recently, thank goodness--Christine would look out on a crowd and see a fine black jacket worn by someone with sleek black hair and she would be struck by a sudden panic. For a few dizzying seconds she would be convinced, deep in her bones, that it was him. When Raoul was present--she rarely walked alone anymore--he would put an arm around her, sometimes stop them entirely, and tell her it was all right. They were safe, she was safe.

Raoul had been studiously protective in those first few months. She knew, though he never told her outright, that he asked people not to bring it up before she met them, and a part of her felt silly, childish for the effort made on her account, but in the end, Christine thought, the careful handling did help. 

Alas, he could not extend the same kindness to her dreams.They weren’t constant, and for that she was grateful. It seemed to Christine that the dreams would come, paradoxically, when she hadn’t thought of it, of him, in some many days or weeks. She would go to bed feeling secure, as though she were finally on level ground, and in her sleep would find herself on a stage, the curtain inching closer and closer to the front of the stage, until she stood on a narrow sliver of wood as the audience looked on expentently, and a voice would boom from the rafters. His voice, always his voice. Or she would be enjoying a stroll, Raoul by her side, when he would turn down an alley, and she would turn to follow in the darkness only to find a masked figure waiting for her in the shadows. Sometimes he had Raoul in a noose, sometimes it was Carlotta or Meg or anyone she had seen recently. The worst was when it was her father with the Angel of Music strangling the miraculously restored life from him as Christine tried to call out, to beg mercy, but found her voice nothing more than a hoarse whisper. 

When she awoke from such dreams, usually in the dead quiet of night, she would try to calm herself. She would light a candle and pace the room, illuminating corners, assuring her own frayed nerves that there was no one lurking. It was on nights like this that she wished Raoul could share her bed. 

\---

“I don’t want our wedding, our whole life together, to be tied up in this, Raoul.” Christine had said almost 12 months ago now, and she had meant it.

“I want to be with you, forever, Christine. That will be as true now as it is next summer, and every summer after.” Raoul gazed at her, earnest and steadfast, as he always did. 

“Then we can wait? You don’t mind?”

Raoul kissed her, his arms tight around her, holding fast. She felt safe. 

\---

When Christine mentioned her interest in performing again, Raoul was sweetly, protectively, skeptical.

“No one should blame you if you wish to leave that world behind you Christine. I can provide for both of us.” 

“I know you can, Raoul. It’s nothing to do with that. Music is what I have from my father, and I don’t want to let that go, no matter how many troubling memories are tied up in it. I want to sing again, sing for an audience, to be a part of a group that creates something fleeting and beautiful.”

He smiled at her, acquiescing. “Then I suppose we had better take in a show or two? We must find the best fit for your talents. How about the evening after next? I recall seeing a poster for a performance of Samson et Dalila at the theater just down the way.”

And so they went, Christine more than a little charmed by the novelty of simply _watching_ a show.

Raoul sprang for a box, of course, and the two of them arrived just as the show began. Christine took in the view. The architecture was lovely, precise to a fault. The sound from the stage traveled crisp and clear to their ears, and while the ambiance, Christine thought, lacked some of the character of the Populaire, by the end of the first act she found herself swaying with the music, enchanted. 

It was in the transition from act one to two that Christine noticed a figure in the box very nearly opposite their own. The small lamp in the box had been snuffed out, so she hadn’t noticed him right away, assuming it to be empty. The figure sat, his face in shadow from a wide brimmed hat, and his jacket collar sat high on his shoulder, obscuring his chin. 

A lead weight seemed to drop from her sternum to her belly. Her skin felt cold, the mild air suddenly prickling at her. 

Raoul was looking out over the audience on the floor, likely trying to tell if the seats were full, if this theater had the sort of clientele and ticket sales Christine deserved. Christine steadied herself. She closed her eyes, telling herself it was just another scare. Some frightened animal part of her expected to see him around every corner, so occasionally she did. It didn’t mean he was there. It didn’t mean he could reach her. 

Her breathing steadied and she looked to the darkened box once more.

Staring back, his face fully turned to her now, was the Phantom. Her terrible ghost. His hat was pulled low on his forehead, and he wore what looked to be a fine black silk cravat draped artfully over the right side of his face. His eye--the one she could see, sharp and focused--honed so precisely on her, and widened as the shock registered on her face. 

For a moment it was like her dreams; she wanted to scream but her throat was frozen, choking on fear. Finally, she reached out for the steady arm at her side, and in a forced whisper cried, “Raoul!”

Raoul turned immediately, and at first she was like a fish gasping for air on the deck of a boat. He leaned in, and brought his hands up to softly cup her jaw. 

“Christine, what is it? You’re all right, I’m here. You’re safe.”

“He’s--” her gasping breaths stilted her speech, but she managed to continue. “He’s here. Why--How did he know?”

Raoul’s hands fell to her shoulders, gently massaging them. His face was open, determined. “Where is he? Where do you see him?”

Grasping at her composure, Christine managed to gesture in the direction of the figure. “Across from us… the box seat without a light.”

Raoul looked, and Christine searched his face. He squinted, and eventually a crease of concern formed between his eyes. 

“There’s no one there, Christine. The light is probably out because no one reserved it. There are empty floor seats as well. A slow evening.”

Christine shook her head and looked back at the box to find that Raoul was right. There was no figure, nothing at all in that dark alcove. 

“He was. I saw him,” She felt her conviction crumbling, “He--he _looked_ at me.”

“It was your imagination, nothing more.”

Christine looked into his patient, understanding eyes, and felt stinging tears well up in her own. She pressed her face into his chest. 

“I’m sorry, Raoul,” her voice is muffled by the fine fabric of his jacket. “I don’t mean to do this.”

“Shh, shhh. It’s alright. You must calm down; there is no danger here.”

Her face still pressed to him, Christine nodded. Slowly she sat up. Raoul handed her a handkerchief from one of his pockets. She dabbed at the tears on her cheek, attemped to straighten her hair. 

“That’s it, my love. Are you feeling better? Do you want to stay for the rest of the show or should we make it an early evening?”

They decided to stay. No sense letting an absurd fright ruin their night. Christine tried to enjoy the show, but her eyes would drift of their own accord to the darkened box seat. 

\---

“You’ll never believe who I ran into on my ride this afternoon…” 

Raoul took a bite from his dinner and leaned back in his chair, looking across the table at Christine, the expression on his face one she would call “endearingly smug.”

“And who would that be?”

“Oh, perhaps the manager of a certain theater that we may have visited last week.”

Christine couldn’t help but smile at the hopeful smirk on his face.

“Is that so? Did you discuss anything interesting?”

“Well, as soon as I mentioned my fiance was one Christine Daaé, he certainly seemed interested.”

A slight blush rose in Christine’s cheeks. “Probably fishing for gossip.”

“Nothing of the sort. I mentioned that you were considering taking up performing again, and well, I should think that if you showed up on his doorstep he’d practically trip over himself to offer you a starring role.”

She let out a flattered laugh. “I doubt that, Raoul. But still… maybe I will pay him a visit.”

\---

Her pulse quickened as she approached the steps, and Christine told herself it was excitement at the prospect of performing again. 

She was greeted at the door and told to wait in the foyer for Mr. Garnier. After sitting patiently for a few minutes, Christine’s curiosity got the better of her, and she began wandering the beautiful open space. The furniture, the layout, the artwork, were all impeccable, and she traced her fingers over a majestic sculpture that stood to one side of the stairway to the balcony seating. She imagined what her life might look like, performing here, and found the picture was a pretty one. She turned a corner, hoping to inspect a breathtaking landscape mounted on a far wall, and instead found her breath trapped in her lungs.

At the end of the corridor, before her, stood a figure in a wide-brimmed hat and a silk cravat draped over his face. The two of them frozen, Christine once again saw recognition in his eye. Her terrible angel reached out a hand. His mouth opened as if to speak, but Christine turned and ran. She passed by an older gentleman, looking confused in a fine suit, and flew out the door. She was halfway to her home when she finally stopped and looked behind her.

No pursuers. The street was open, the sun still bright in the sky. The light calmed her, and she made the rest of her way at a brisk walk. 

\---

“He’s gone, Christine.” Raoul stroked her hair as he held her. “You’re only imagining things again.” 

Frustration prickled at her eyes, causing new tears to well up. “This wasn’t like the other times. He was there. I saw his face, and he saw me.”

The soft tones of comfort slipped from Raoul’s voice. “I worry about you, my dear. I worry you can’t put this behind you. ”

Christine pulled away, steadying herself on the back of one of Raoul’s very fine chairs. “You’re not listening. Please, my love. I don’t want this any more than you. I want to be free of him, and all of it.”

“Marry me.”

“What?”

“Christine, marry me. Next week, tomorrow, give me an hour or two and we can do it tonight if you like. When we’re married you can stay by my side. You’ll be in my house, protected. No one can reach you here.”

Christine felt immediately overwhelmed. The Phantom had already tainted so much of her life, and the thought of him being the impetus for her marriage, for a life-long commitment that should be made, if one is lucky enough, from _love_. The thought of one more thing, and a thing so large, being dictated, again, by fear. It was too much.

“Raoul. I want to say yes. Please know that I want to say yes.”

“But you can’t?” Raoul crossed the room to her, and softened his voice, “Or you won’t?”

Christine looked up at him, and frustration again threatened her composure, although this time she worried she would raise her voice at him, at her sweet, protective Raoul. Instead she closed her eyes and held his hands in hers. 

The two of them stood silently like that for some time.

\---

_Dearest Christine,_

_I want you to know first that I did not leave this letter for you by my own hand. I instructed a mutual acquaintance of ours--I do believe you can imagine who--to leave it at your door. I say this because I hope that you’ll understand, and believe, that our encounter three days ago was as much a surprise to me as it was to you. The look of your frightened face haunts me, Christine, and I wish never to be the cause of it again. I have no intention to impose upon your life, and any comfort you draw from that fact will be comfort to me, although I realize I hardly deserve it. You always did have the more charitable heart._

_Regards,  
Your Ghost_

Christine stood in her doorway, hands shaking as she read. It felt suddenly as though a powerful bird fluttered in her chest, knocking into her ribs, her lungs, her heart. 

\---

When she arrived at Raoul’s home for their weekly dinner, he greeted her fondly and, to Christine’s surprise, introduced her to a man standing in the living room holding a glass of the Viscount’s nicest scotch. 

His name was Dr. Marcel, and he specialized in medicine of the mind. He was friendly and professional, and he set Christine’s teeth on edge. He asked her about the “incident with the mad man in the opera house.” He asked her if she ever saw things that weren’t there, heard voices in her head. He listened intently as she answered, and Raoul’s face, whenever she managed a pleading glance in his direction, was impassive. At every lull in the conversation, he would provide encouragement to continue, sometimes answering questions directed at Christine when she struggled to reply. 

Finally, the doctor left. Christine closed the door after him and turned to her fiance.

“Raoul,” she kept her voice even, measured. She would not be seen as hysterical. “What was that?”

There was an artificial looseness in the set of his shoulders. “I thought Dr. Marcel might be able to help with your difficulties. With our difficulties.”

“You still don’t believe me. I know what I saw, Raoul.” Forcefulness blunted her words, and she took a breath. “I’m not imagining, I’m not dreaming, and I’m certainly not making it up.”

“Of course you’re not making it up! I believe you, my love, I do. But,” Christine’s eyes narrowed. “You never did have the strongest constitution in these matters. And after what you’ve been through, no one can blame you.”

“You think I’ve lost my mind?” She was pacing now, and knew she should stop but could not stand to be still. “You think I’ve lost my mind, so you ambush me with a doctor? You don’t discuss it with me, you simply bring a stranger into--”

“Dr. Marcel is hardly a stranger; we’ve gone riding for y--”

“He’s a stranger to me, Raoul. He’s a stranger to me, and you brought him here to dredge up terrible memories so that he might find what’s wrong with my poor tortured mind, is that it?”

“I knew you would react like this if I told you ahead of time. You must c--”

“You knew! You know me so well, don’t you? You know what makes me smile, what makes me weep, but most importantly, you know what frightens me. You know of the man who haunts me, who must haunt you too, for that matter! You know, you must remember that he cannot be taken lightly.”

“That repulsive ghoul is gone, Christine. You must accept it. Your fright now lies in your own mind, and until you purge it I fear you will never truly allow yourself to live.” He approached her. His face softened, and her earnest, sweet Raoul stared back at her. “And if you can’t do that, then how can we have a life together?”

She fell into his arms, because it seemed like the only place to go, like they were more steady than the ground beneath her feet. “I’m not mad.”

“Of course not, my love,” murmured Raoul, petting her hair. “Of course not.”

\---

She had planned to show the letter to Raoul at dinner, but now she sat in her home, folding it, unfolding it, reading it, and folding it again. She placed the fine paper in its envelope and shoved it decisively into a drawer. 

If she showed him now, would it clear her name, or only convince him further of her reduced faculties? Would he assume she wrote it? Would he think it was some cruel joke, a prank by a child who heard his mother gossiping about the poor singing girl?

Christine wondered herself if there weren’t some explanation beyond her grasp.

But no. She had seen him. She had seen him, and the letter, however sweet, however uncharacteristically gentle it may be, was from him. She knew it. 

Why had it been so gentle? She resisted the urge to take it out and read it again. She pictured him, despite herself, sitting at a desk and choosing his words carefully. Was it all a manipulation? Was it just another way to wind himself like a serpent around Christine’s psyche? He could no longer be her foretold Angel of Music, so was his repentance just a new act?

She didn’t know, and thinking of it made the air in her lungs feel heavy. 

\---

The following week, Dr. Marcel returned. He arrived just after lunch time, as she and Raoul sat sipping tea and chuckling over frivolities. This time he brought with him two large men in strange plain smocks.

At the knock, Christine glanced out the window that faced the street. She saw the doctor, his cohorts, and a large, windowless carriage. 

“What is this?” She asked, peering through the curtain.

“Ah, good, he’s here.” Raoul stood and placed a finger under her chin, turning her face from the window. He spoke so softly, his eyes making every attempt to appeal to her accommodating nature. “Dr. Marcel says treatment in cases like yours can be a week, sometimes less. Certainly no longer than a month, and then you’ll be a new woman. I know how desperately you want to move past all of this.” 

“You brought him here again?” Raoul, although his face, his voice, his gentle hands remained the same, looked thoroughly unfamiliar to her now. “You brought them here to take me away?”

“Of course, I’ll ensure you have the finest care. The doctor’s facilities are second to none. You’ll be in very capable hands.”

There was another knock, just as patient as the first.

“You’re having me locked away? In hopes that it will fix me?”

“It’s only for a short time, my love. Only until you're better.”

Christine’s head was swimming. Had she really gotten so bad? Were her episodes so intolerable that her sweet Raoul felt this was his only recourse?

“I need… a moment. Please tell him I won’t be long,” she said, and for a genuine instant believed it to be the truth. 

“Of course, my dear.”

Christine rushed off to the restroom. Tears began welling in her eyes, and she paced the small space with increasing worry. She was trapped in here and soon she would be trapped in a place trying in vain to cure her of delusions that were all too real. Once she was there, how could she convince them of the truth? Once there, she would forever be a madwoman, unless she could prove--

The letter. Perhaps they would be skeptical, but surely they must consider such evidence?

She heard the door open, and Raoul warmly greeting the doctor.

Before she could reconsider, Christine opened the door, removed her shoes so as to be silent across the floor, and flew to the unattended side entrance of Raoul’s home. Once through the door, she put her shoes back on her feet and ran as quickly as they would carry her. 

\---

When she arrived at home, she immediately went for the letter. She opened it, she read it again, to be sure. Her mind was not playing tricks on her, the inky letters stood out clear as day on the page, in the deliberate script of the Opera Ghost. She would bring this to Raoul and the doctor and they would be compelled to believe her. 

She threw a hooded cloak over her shoulders, as the late afternoon would soon give way to evening chill. She clutched the letter in her hands, and just before walking out the door, fetched a small purse containing some of her own earnings. She set a brisk pace, returning in the direction from which she had come, but soon stopped dead in her tracks. 

Dr. Marcel’s windowless carriage approached up the road. An icy spike of realization struck her. The letter she held felt suddenly like the flimsiest bet she could make for her sanity, her freedom. She pulled up her hood and made her way in the opposite direction.

She thought of the letter, and its mention of a mutual acquaintance. 

\---

“Did you leave this at my door?”

Madame Giry’s eyes darted to the envelope, recognition flickering before she looked quickly away. “Why do you wish to know?”

“Where is he, Madame? I must know.”

“I keep out of such matters.”

“You are a liar. You know where he is. You’re still taking direction from him, and money too, I’d wager.”

“What good can that information be to you? He will seek you out no longer, Christine. In that I believe he is quite genuine.”

“Raoul thinks I am mad!” She shouted suddenly, knowing it wouldn’t help to dissuade Madame Giry of the same belief. “He believes I imagine the Phantom’s face in the shadows, that I am haunted by my own memories to the point of insanity. But I have seen him! For God’s sake,” she shook the envelope in the space between them, “He has written me a letter.” 

Christine took a breath, smoothed the skirt of her dress. “I must prove that he is real, that the hauntings are not in my mind.”

“You plan to expose him?”

Christine wanted to shout Yes! Of course I want to expose him! It’s what he deserves. But found the thought of it twisting at her heart. He had done terrible things to her, to so many people, but in the end he let her go. It seemed like a violation of that pact--a pact she made under duress. A pact born of great violence and fear--that they made as she and Raoul found their way from his lair. 

“He is once again, intentionally or not, pulling at the threads of my life. The edges are fraying and I feel the whole fabric will tear again. I’ve tried so hard to rebuild myself after everything he’s done, and once again I feel trapped in his web!”

“It sounds to me as though his is not the only web you find clinging to your limbs.”

\---

Christine convinced herself she truly was mad a dozen times over as she raised her hand to ring the hidden bell. She silently cursed Madame Giry for telling her its location at all, for telling her how to find this place. As she waited for an answer, Christine steeled herself. She was committed, and would see this through however she must.

The Phantom--that wasn’t his name, she thought, feeling foolish--answered the door, hardly looking up, the right side of his face, still draped in silk, angled deliberately away from the door. He did not look at her right away. 

“Madame Giry, I do not recall requesting your servi--” he glanced up, and he froze. 

“Christine.” He faced her head-on now, his eye wide and unbelieving. 

“I’m told your name is Erik. Is that right?”

He blinked at her, and a laugh nearly escaped her throat. No, she would not be cruel.

In lieu of an answer, the once great and terrible Opera Ghost poked his head just out the door, looking side-to-side. Satisfied, he beckoned Christine to enter, holding the door with all the stiffness of a doorman on his first day. 

She did enter, and found her surroundings altogether strange in their familiarity.

The space, what appeared to be two or perhaps three adjoining rectangular rooms situated in the lower levels of a university, was more structured than his lair beneath the opera house had been. He had filled it with arts and finery that suited his taste, but it was in its architecture clearly not intended to be a home.

The Phantom was fluttering around the main room, picking up things here and there, until eventually he reached a large chair, artfully made and beautifully upholstered. 

“Christine. I-- please sit, if you like.”

Christine stood. “You have not answered my question.”

“Your…?”

“Is your name Erik? If we’re to have a conversation I do not especially wish to call you Angel of Music or Phantom or Opera Ghost for the duration.”

“Ah. Oh.” He crossed the room to approach her, but at about five feet thought better of it and stood stock still. “Yes. I can assume from that piece of information--and from the fact that you’re here at all, I suppose--that you have spoken with Madame Giry.”

“I have. I received your letter, and I guessed its deliverer.”

“Of course.” His posture slowly began to regain a practiced regalness that she recognized.

Christine looked him over, trying to puzzle out what might be running through his mind. “Does it upset you that I know it?”

“Upset me? No, I wouldn’t say that. It’s strange. I fully expected to never speak to you again, so your knowing it at all is simply… strange.”

“Well, at least I have the advantage of surprise then.” She didn’t smile, exactly, but there was a tightness in her cheeks that felt, absurdly, like fondness. 

Erik spoke so softly she hardly heard him, “I think you may be the only person who can surprise me, Christine.”

“Well, then may we hope that fact will protect me in this place.”

He looked wounded for all of a second, and then he schooled his face into something again neutral. “I will not harm you, not ever again. On that you have my word, if nothing else.”

“I hope that is true.”

They stood and looked at one another, and then they stood and looked anywhere else. Finally, Erik crossed the room once more, to a small organ. He lightly touched a key, playing a single tremulous note. She couldn’t say for certain, but she thought a small measure of the tension in his face subsided as the note faded from the ear.

“Why are you here, Christine? Is it for an apology? Because I am truly sorry. Is it for revenge? Ask, and you may have it.”

“My fiance believes me mad.” 

“The Viscount? What absurdity has he dreamed up?”

“I told him I saw you, that I’ve been seeing you, and he thinks I’ve imagined it all. He thinks I can’t move past what happened, and that I should be committed to some barbaric treatment so that I can still someday be a suitable wife.”

“Christine…” there was hurt in his voice, subdued but unmistakable.

“It seems I can’t escape you whether you let me go or not.”

“I do not know what to say. I’m sorry to have caused you more pain. I’m sorry to have sown more turmoil into your life, however inadvertently.”

“I did imagine you, for quite some time. I would see you in crowds, you would murder loved ones in my dreams. I wanted nothing more than to be rid of you, and then I saw you in that darkened box at the show, and now you’re the only thing that can prove my sanity.”

Erik looked pained, he looked _guilty_. She supposed that was fair, at least. He sat at the organ now, and his hands hovered over the keys, but did not strike any of them.

Christine sat finally in the chair, feeling suddenly weary from the chaos of the day. “I have nowhere to go.”

“Nowhere?”

“They sent men to my home. Raoul and his doctor intend to commit me whether or not I am willing.”

“And you are not willing.”

Christine looked at him, and he must have taken her resolve for an answer.

“Well then!” Erik stood up, bursting with the energy that had been sapped from her just before. “We must clear your name. Perhaps a kidnapping will do it.”

A jolt of panic struck her. “Kidnapping?!” She nearly went for the door.

Realizing his mistake, Erik pressed his hands together and took a single step closer. “A false kidnapping of course. I’ll send a letter or two to your dear Viscount, saying that I’ve got you in my secret lair, perhaps demand a ransom. They will believe it of me.”

Christine, momentarily lost for words, blinked at him dumbly. His manner was entirely changed from his trepidatious welcome at the door. She remembered, again with that absurd fondness she could not suppress, how terribly clever he could be when set to something. 

“You’ll emerge, safe and sound in a week or so, having escaped. You’ll be a darling of the newspapers, I’m sure.”

Her face soured. “No. No, I won’t be party to lies. Certainly not your lies. The truth should suffice!”

“My de--,” He stopped short, started again. “Mademoiselle, the truth is rarely the panacea we wish it could be.”

Her brow furrowed. She wished he wasn’t right, but the truth had only gotten her in her current predicament. 

“I don’t think the letters will work. If they are convinced I imagined you, it is not so great a leap to imagine I wrote them in some fog of madness.”

Erik raised a hand to his chin, nodding. “I will sort this out for you. There is a way, it simply must be found.”

Perhaps, Christine thought, she did want to be a little cruel.

“You could turn yourself over to the authorities. That would clear my name.”

Erik looked as though he had weathered a sudden but invisible blow to the chest. He sat again at his seat behind the organ. He did not look up at her as he spoke.

“Christine, I will do what I can to help you. Please believe that, but,” his hands gripped at the bench below him, “I cannot be locked up. I will not be put in another cage. Ask me to die; it would be kinder.”

A wave of regret crashed over her, and it was foolish, wasn’t it? To pity this man who had done such things to her, who had rained down destruction and called it love?

The wave did not subside however, so she stood and approached him where he sat. She put a hand on his shoulder, and his jump at her touch only added to the cracks in her heart.

“I’m sorry, Erik.” She reached down and clutched his hand where it clung to the bench. “In all truth, and perhaps against my better judgement, I do not wish to see you locked away.” 

Tentatively, Erik turned to face her, taking her hand now, in both of his. “It is that damnable kind heart of yours. If any justice exists in this world, it will see you through this.”

“You’re putting your faith in justice now?”

“My faith? No. I have considerable doubts that justice is not, as a concept, hardly anything more than a story the beautiful and the secure tell themselves so they may sleep at night.” Slowly, as though he were approaching a timid creature, Erik lifted her hand in his, and pressed his lips softly to her knuckles. “But if anyone could turn my worldview on its axis, it is you.”

The intimacy of the moment made her stomach jump. Christine froze, told herself she should pull away from him, get out, get far away and take her chances with the medical men. But he did not move to escalate, and after a long minute, he let her hand go, stood, and moved to his writing desk. 

“If you need a place to stay, you may return to Madame Giry. I will instruct her to put you up in a hotel far from your Viscount’s sphere of influence.” Erik stood over his desk. He held in his hands what appeared to be building plans, for what Christine could not say. “I will keep the rooms as long as you need them.”

She frowned. “I want your help, but I do not wish to live on your charity.”

He cocked his head at this, looked up from his work. “It’s no trouble, I assure you.”

“I’m sure it isn’t, but I’m not looking to be hidden away somewhere while you take care of my problem.” 

“I’m sure I could persuade Giry to take you in, if it would make you feel comfortable.”

“No, her daughter Meg and I are good friends. Raoul would know to check there, if he hasn’t already.”

Erik crossed his arms. He would, if she let him, spend the rest of the evening providing solutions and plotting schemes, but she wondered if he would ever think to consult her as he did it.

“I could procure you a carriage out of the city, but it will be harder to communicate should the need arise.” 

“I have somewhere in mind.”

“Oh,” he seemed puzzled, a little impatient. “Where is it.”

“The last place anyone would think to look for me.”

Erik lifted an eyebrow, bidding her to continue. 

“Here.”

“Christine, I--” He stepped from behind the desk. He turned to her, and then away again. One hand rose to press at his temple. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“I think I do.”

“I’ve said goodbye to you once, and it was as if I’d opened my chest and let you take what you pleased. I’m already dreading your departure now. If you stay, I don’t know if I will let you go a second time.”

Christine was not as perturbed as she expected to be by such a declaration. Instead, she moved behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder as he faced away. 

“I think you will.” His head turned ever so slightly in her direction, but he otherwise remained still. “I think you will, because if you don’t it means I’m wrong about you. It means I was wrong about you the night the Populaire fell, and I don’t think you can stand for that to be true, Erik.” 

He turned at that, taking her hand from his shoulder and leaving it at her side. He stood so close he hardly needed to whisper to be heard, and softly, looking down at the space between them, he said, “You put too much faith in me, Mademoiselle.”

And that was true, by all reasonable measures. She knew that if someone had recounted her own tale to her, had asked what she should do in this moment, she would tell herself that relying on this man--once Phantom--would only lead to heartbreak and destruction.

But whose?

She put a finger under his chin, tipping it up so that he looked at her. “As you put faith in a young chorus girl? If I could bear that, I believe you will bear this.”

He closed his eyes and let out a breath he must have been holding. 

Some part of her knew, since the moment he freed Raoul from the noose and screamed at them to leave, since he took his ring and told her he loved her, that Erik now had some part of himself wrapped up in Christine in a way his single-minded obsession had not allowed until that moment.

She was haunted by the things he had done, but she could not find the fright in herself as she looked up at him now.

Christine’s hand drifted over Erik’s jaw, and he did not move. She made a decision.  
Sliding a finger under the silk over his face, she gently tugged it away. Erik gasped softly. Delicate. She removed the fabric completely and looked into his eyes. 

“I know you, Erik. Despite everything, I believe I can trust you.” She placed the silk in his hand, closed his fingers around it. “Tell me I’m wrong.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They were being domestic. Oh my god they were being domestic.

Christine awoke with her legs tangled in heavy sheets, her arms reaching the edge of a plush mattress. At first, the dark was all encompassing, impenetrable, but soon her eyes adjusted, and she made out unfamiliar shapes against the windowless walls. 

No, they weren’t unfamiliar--she blinked, focused--she simply hadn’t grown accustomed to them. (Yet?)

Last night, Erik had insisted she take the bed. Said he had no trouble sleeping on the sofa for as long as she might be staying.

“Please, take it. Should my back grow sore a proper mattress will simply be one thing for me to look forward to when you leave.” He said this with a forced lightness, a smile that only tugged half his face. “A small comfort.”

Christine sighed, but did not fight him on it after that.

When he’d let her into the room, he handed her a key. “You’ll have to take my word for it, but this key locks the bedroom from the inside. There is no copy. I do want you to feel safe.”

She searched his--uncovered, open--face, and saw a silent plea in it. She took the key, squeezing his hand as she did so, and thanked him. 

She had undressed to her chemise and drawers. She felt exposed, but only the walls stared back at her, and the thought of sleeping in her corset--let alone her dress and petticoats--after running through half of Paris in the thing was too much to bear. She slipped into the sheets, and the mattress seemed to form around her, cradling her, and despite her racing thoughts, soon she drifted off.

She sat up as she pieced this together, groggy memories gradually making sense of her surroundings. She could not guess at the time, but did feel rested. She stood and fumbled at a bedside table, found a half-full box of matches, and lit a small lamp sitting next to it. With the modest light she managed to dress herself to a standard which appeared respectable to her straining eyes. 

Holding the lamp, she took the key Erik had provided and put it in the door. The lock opened with a satisfying click, and Christine peered out into what she supposed one would call the living room. 

It was very dark--again, no windows. She held out her light and realized in short order that the room was empty of anyone, which was… unexpected. 

“Erik?” She looked around the room, eventually finding a door she hadn’t gone through before. She tried the handle, but it seemed to be locked with the same heavy mechanism of the bedroom. She called out again, but there was no answer. 

Eventually, Christine lit a large lamp in the center of the room, and it was then that she noticed a note sitting on the organ bench. 

_Christine,  
I have stepped out. I shall endeavor to return before lunch time. Please make use of anything you like.  
Erik_

Unable to say exactly why, Christine tucked the note into a pocket of her skirt. She took the lamp and went to the front door, opened it a crack, and the light was blinding to her dark-adjusted eyes. 

At least she knew it was daytime. 

She looked out on the alley and realized that, though it had been bright to her, even it sat in considerably more shadow than the street just beyond. It was in all other ways unremarkable, the rooms behind her entirely undetectable from outside.

Should she go? If ever there were a time to think better of this whole half-formed plot, this quest to prove her sanity, it was now. She could take what little money she had, and leave. She could go to the authorities and bring them here. Raoul and his doctor wouldn’t dare lock her up if she turned in the murderous Opera Ghost of the Populaire. Perhaps she and Raoul could even--

\--could they go back to normal, now? Would it ever be like it had been? When she thought of Raoul she thought of safety, of warmth, of kindness, but now all of that was streaked with a single stroke of mistrust. A constant, distant worry that if she stayed with him, she would always be wondering how far his kindness would give before it gave way to stubbornness. Once they were married, she might not have any recourse if it did. 

Her breaths grew shallow, and it felt as though the air was leaving her lungs faster than she could pull it in. She stumbled back through the door, let it fall shut. She placed the lamp on a nearby table and braced herself with both hands on the back of a chair--the chair Erik had offered when she first arrived. 

She closed her eyes and slowed her breathing. For a year, she had believed her life about to begin in earnest. She believed Raoul to be her port in the storm, and the winds of her doubt were leaving her unmoored. 

She had nowhere to go.

\---

By the time Erik returned Christine had calmed considerably. She had found a teapot and a small stove, brewing a cup of some bitter and soothing blend.

The door opened, and she saw him step in, dragging a moderately sized trunk in his wake. 

She stood to close the door behind him. When he caught sight of her, a small smile twitched at his mouth. She had lit a few more lamps while she waited, so now at least the contrast between indoors and out was not so harsh. Still, his eyes--or eye, at least, the other obscured by the slightly transparent slip of cloth over his face--stayed wide for a few minutes as he reacclimated. It made him look younger, Christine thought, or perhaps it was his demeanor. 

Erik set the trunk near the sofa without comment. He removed his hat, his cape, and hung them up. 

“Did you sleep well?” 

Christine sat on one end of the sofa, taking her tea in hand.

“Better than I expected. I must have been more exhausted than I thought. I hope the sofa wasn’t too awful?” She straightened a throw pillow. 

“It was perfectly serviceable. I rose early this morning at any rate. Easier to do things in the low light before sunrise, I find.” He remained standing, his fingers fiddling minutely at his sides.

“What were you doing?”

“Ah!” He raised a hand, remembering. “First, this.” He reached into his jacket and pulled from it a small parcel wrapped in clean white paper, some areas of it dotted lightly with grease. “I thought you might be hungry, and there’s a place around the corner. The woman there has exceedingly poor eyesight, but is a wonder with flour and sugar.”

She took the bundle and unwrapped it to find a round pastry, smelling fresh and buttery. She inhaled, and realized she was hungry now, distractingly so. 

“Oh, thank you.” She tore off a small piece. “Don’t you have anything for yourself?” The layers of pastry melted in her mouth.

Erik watched her, a subdued but undeniable fondness wrinkling the corner of his eye. Christine felt a few too many things about that fondness, many of them contradictory, but she pushed it away. He’d made a nice gesture, that was all.

“I’m fine. I’ll put together something for lunch soon.”

Christine took another bite, then glanced obviously to the trunk. “You visited more than the baker while you were out.”

“Yes!” He said, and opened the trunk. “If you’re staying here I thought you would be needing a few things. 

He pulled a dress from the trunk. Her dress.

Her eyes widened. He draped the garment over the back of the chair, pulled out another. Next a pair of shoes, well matched. “Did you go to my home?”

“I fetched what I thought you might need. I apologize for the broken window, but I’ll be happy to replace it when this is all over. I was careful not to cause too much undue damage, but I did my best to make it appear as though something frightful occurred. Some overturned furniture, scuff marks on the floor,” he waved his hand, suggesting details glossed over, “along those lines. It should cause Raoul and his medical friend quite a fright when they stumble upon it.”

“You made it look like something terrible happened? In my home.”

“Of course, they mustn’t believe you to be hiding of your own accord.”

Christine snorted. “Of course!”

Erik frowned and stepped toward her. “Christine, you must understand, I did this to help you.”

“I told you I did not want to be a prop for your lies. I told you I didn’t want to wait behind uselessly, stowed away while someone else solves this for me.”

He dropped to a knee and spoke up at her. “Forgive me. I--I” he clutched at his jacket, smoothed it out. “I believed this would be the best course to take.” 

“To make me a victim of your whims, again? It’s as if you, as if everyone--” Raoul, she thought, “can only conceive of me as something needing rescue or pity.”

Erik’s eyes widened again, too many things flickering across the half of his face she could see to read them all. He stood.

“No! I-- I thought you came to me because I can fix this. I’m trying to fix this. Is that not why you’re here?”

Her heart thumped at the sight of him looming over her, agitated. She closed her eyes, took a breath. Refused to cower. 

“I want you to help me fix this. I don’t want you going off and stirring it up into something worse.”

She stood, the space between them vanishingly small. 

“I did not come here for you to save me from anything. I came here because you’re the only other person who knows that what Raoul and Dr. Marcel believe is not true.” 

He deflated, his shoulders dropping. “I’m sorry. Tell me what I can do.” 

“Right now? Nothing. Make some lunch. We’ll both think better with some food in our stomachs.” She sat back on the sofa, and took another bite from her pastry, determined to enjoy her breakfast.

\---

“Why don’t you take that thing off? It can’t be comfortable as you eat.”

A small tray of cold meats, slices of soft, crusty bread, and fruits sat between them on a small table, and because Christine’s stomach grumbled for something substantial, she took the seat opposite Erik without hesitation and began building a small arrangement of the selection on her own plate. 

He huffed out a single humorless chuckle, and shrugged. “I don’t wish to ruin your appetite.” He managed half of a weak smile for her benefit. 

“Erik, your face is no more upsetting to me than your voice, your hands, or any other part of you.” He eyed her skeptically. “Which is to say, I dream of it, and they are often not good dreams, but not for the reason you think. You’re certainly in no danger of putting me off my lunch.”

“You have recoiled from it before.”

“I recoiled from you, screaming and throwing me to the ground.”

Erik looked down, brow furrowed. He slid the cloth from his face and placed it in his jacket pocket. 

Christine reached out, brushed a thumb over the twisted flesh of his cheekbone. “And even if I did recoil then, I do not now. Your face is no secret to me, so why treat it as one?”

His face changed when his eyes met her, and something twisted under Christine’s ribs. She remembered him, standing on the stars as she held out his ring, before turning to leave him alone in that dark and haunted place a year ago. 

Her hand lingered, and Erik leaned into the touch, incrementally, so lightly that Christine may have not have noticed but for the strained stiffness in his neck.

She pulled her hand away, willing the spell--on which of them?--to be broken. Erik smiled, something less pained this time, and began to eat his lunch. 

\---

After lunch, Christine did go through the items in the trunk. She found more clothing, shoes, a few books, a hairbrush, and other toiletries. It was as though she’d packed for a weekend away. 

“Erik, we have to figure this out. I can’t stay in hiding forever.”

He looked up from his writing desk where he pored over an assortment of documents. She had no idea if they concerned her predicament, or if they were something from one of his own projects. She knew so little of what he did now.  
“You get used to it, if that’s any consolation.” She glanced at him, and the closed-lipped smile that greeted her was almost... playful. 

She smiled back, despite herself, her eyebrows coming together in surprise. 

He put the papers down. “No, of course. I’m afraid I’ve been trying to come up with something that doesn’t involve subterfuge and putting your dear Viscount through quite an ordeal, but perhaps subtlety is not my strong suit.”

A laugh did escape her throat at that, but she pressed on. “We need to prove your existence to them.”

“If that’s all you need from me Christine, I can erase all doubt from their minds.”

“Without hurting anyone. Or giving them a terrible fright.”

“You can see where I’m struggling. Men like Raoul de Chagny, and I presume his doctor, are men who refuse to adjust their view of the world except under the most dire circumstances.”

“He’s not unreasonable. If the truth is clear, he will accept it.”

“The same man who believed himself to be your shining knight, until he found himself in a noose?”

She frowned. “That’s not fair.”

“Forgive me. I simply have my doubts.” Erik stood, leaning back against the front of his desk with his arms folded. “I fear we’ve passed the point of full honesty, no matter how we proceed.”

Christine re-folded one of the petticoats she had pulled from the trunk. He was right. The moment she found Erik, walked willingly into his hidden home, and chose to trust him over everyone else, there was no version of the whole truth that left her sanity, even her good judgement, unquestionable. 

“At least the lies will be mine. I’ll deal with them.”

“How do you plan to return once I’ve performed a grand reveal? Will you say I took you after all? Or perhaps that I tried, and it gave you such a fright that you ran where no one would find you?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s an important consideration. We must know the final play before we may construct the scaffolding that will get us there.”

“I know, I just--” The words caught in her throat, and Erik noticed. Of course he did. He came to her, held out a hand.

She took it, standing. “I don’t know that I can return to Raoul.” She did not look at him as she spoke. She felt that same tightness in her chest that had so affected her that morning. “I see nothing else for me, but I do not know if I can stay and love a man who doubts me so.”

Her breaths were fast and shallow now, and she felt ridiculous, wanted to apologize. 

Erik did not let go of her hand. 

“If he is capable of this, of having me locked up by his own judgement, what will he be when we are married? When I am devoted to him for my life?”

“You are not devoted to him yet, Christine.”

“Would a sudden broken engagement not be enough? For a Viscount to have a woman declared mentally unsound? A suspicious disappearance added to that? I feel no matter my choice, he can twist it however he likes.”

“Do you believe he would?”

Before she could think better of it, Christine found herself pressed against Erik’s chest, her hands on his lapels. She tried to compose herself, her breaths teetering on the threshold of sobs. His arms stiffened, but eventually he wrapped them around her shoulders. 

“I don’t--” A breath, stilted. “I don’t know. It terrifies me that I don’t know. How can I risk my freedom on such a thing?” She inhaled deeply, let it out slowly. “I do not even know if he would still have me, and despite everything that hurts me. What have I done to earn such treatment?”

Erik took her by the shoulders and held her away from him so that he could see her face. “You’ve done nothing, Christine. This whole business is the fault of those who never did deserve you. Unfortunately the world is not obligated to reward goodness with fairness.”

Christine felt the tingling heat of tears building in her cheeks, but Erik continued, “We simply must take what fairness we can when it is not allotted to us. No matter your decision, Christine, I will do what I can to see you through it safely.”

She wanted to ask him why, but the answer, flickering at the back of her mind like a candle left burning through the night, felt too dangerous to acknowledge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update! I've written a missing scene that takes place between this and chapter three. If you're interested it can be found here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24258361 ) You don't HAVE to read it before you continue, but I think it adds a few layers to what our dear sweet protagonists are currently going through. Enjoy!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here's where we earn our Explicit rating, folks.

That night, Christine awoke to the sound of music. Again she wasn’t sure of the time, but she felt she hadn’t slept for longer than an hour or two. She lit the lamp at her side and threw her dressing gown--also packed considerately in the trunk-- over her sleeping clothes. 

Quietly, tip-toeing her way to the door, Christine unlocked it, wincing at the unavoidable heavy _click_. The music faltered for a moment, but shortly continued along. She eased the door open, peeking out, and saw Erik, his back to her, sitting at his organ. He played aimlessly, drifting from song to song. He swayed along with the notes, but it seemed to Christine only half-hearted. 

Some songs she recognized, some she didn’t. He would let melodies overlap, falling in on themselves until the next song overpowered the first. No song fully culminated to an end, and so the current of the music kept her listening, guessing at its path. It was hypnotizing. She listened like that for many minutes, enchanted. 

One song began losing its phrases to another, one she recognized but couldn’t place right away. She stepped closer, leaving her lamp behind so the light wouldn’t disrupt his playing. She knew the half-formed song, she knew she had performed it, and in puzzling it out, she began to sing--

“ _I have come here… Hardly knowing the reason why…_ ”

Erik turned to face her, surprised, but his fingers played on as though they would keep doing it in his sleep. 

“ _In my mind I’ve al…_ ” She trailed off. Erik, whose wide eyes had been locked on her, looked down, his fingers still gliding over the keys. 

The melody shifted again, a song she had sung at the Populaire, shortly after her first performance replacing Carlotta. It was a sweet song, not so complex, but an audience favorite. When he looked up at her again, it was pleading. The honesty of it made her heart race. She took a step closer and rested a hand on the side of the organ, feeling each note as he drew it out into the air. 

She sang for him, and he watched her, unblinking, hands playing blindly and effortlessly. He joined her, singing the part of the chorus, his voice a perfect backdrop for hers. It filled the space around her like the mattress she had sunk into her first night here. It gave a clarity to the notes she sang, and her eyes closed so that she might imagine how the music enveloped her. 

This song he played through to the end, and Christine did not know if her breathing, coming now just short of gasps, was due to her being out of practice, or something else entirely.

Once she composed herself, the two of them easing out of a post-performance glow, Christine drew her dressing gown tighter around herself and put her hand over his where it rested on the bench. “Good night, Erik.”

“Thank you,” he said, soft in the sobering silence.

\---

The next morning, when Christine unlocked her door she found the lamps in the living room already illuminated. Erik stood over the stovetop, stirring a small pot, and on the table there was bread, fruit, and tea. 

She picked a berry, popped it in her mouth. “Did you sleep at all?”

His expression was warm as he turned to greet her. “I’ve never been one to keep regular hours.” He took the pot from the stove and brought it to the table, laddling a cream-colored porridge into two small bowls. “Good morning, Christine.” 

“Good morning.” She sat, and he joined her shortly. He wore nothing over his face now, and no jacket either, only a waistcoat with his shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow, and his usual black trousers. Chrstine smiled at him, at his apparent comfort with her now, and she wondered when exactly she’d started considering it more than her own.

They ate in companionable silence for a minute, two. He would sneak glances at her, and she would lock eyes with him until he looked away, but it was playful, just a little game of cat and mouse, with the rules upended for the sake of sport.

“Do you still compose?”

Erik swallowed the bit of porridge-dipped bread he had just bitten into, and leaned back from his breakfast. “I try, now and then. The music doesn’t always come.”

Christine put down her spoon. “I was thinking of performing again. That’s why Raoul and I were at the Opera when you--when I saw you sitting in your box seat. I was supposed to be meeting with the manager when you showed up in that hallway.”

“I’m sorry--”

“No, no. I didn’t bring it up to upset you. It’s just, you can’t force an art, not if it’s something you do with passion. After… everything, the prospect of singing in front of people again felt impossible, but I realized it was something I wanted anyway.”

“Your voice is one that should be shared with the world.”

She smiled, feeling a girlish blush rising on her cheeks. There was something compelling about his certainty. Before it had all gone so terribly wrong, she had felt blessed by an Angel of Music because surely no man, no being of mere flesh and blood, could have such faith in her, no one else could awaken such potential in a middling chorus girl. 

And now she knew he was flesh and blood, and that he still believed with the same conviction. It was more evenly contained now, the hard edges of his obsession worn down by heartbreak and--

\--and love, written plain across his face. The sincerity of it hurt to look at, but Christine struggled to turn away. 

Erik broke away first, picking again at his breakfast, a practiced nonchalance returning to his voice. 

“I’ve been considering your predicament, and I think I’ll need to study up on our good Doctor Marcel. If I know his habits I’ll stand a better chance of clearing your name without getting myself locked up in your place. I can take a carriage to his madhouse, inspect the property, and perhaps get some idea of what makes him tick.”

“That sounds dangerous.”

“This whole business is dangerous,” he fiddled with his food, but did not eat, “but nothing beyond my purview. I will be careful, and this will put us in a better position going forward.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“Christine--”

“I’m not asking.”

“Should he see you,” he placed a hand over his chest, “with me, this could only get worse for you.”

“And I won’t sit by wondering if you’ve gotten yourself into some awful trouble on my account. What should I do then, hm? If you are locked up, and I am still mad, there’s no hope for either of us.”

Erik didn’t like it, that much was clear, but he voiced no more objections. 

\---

The carriage waited the following day, a street over near a popular inn, so passers-by would not question two unfamiliar people coming and going. 

Erik had stepped out again that morning, and had returned with a garment bag. “Your costume, Mademoiselle.”

She raised an eyebrow, but the corner of her mouth turned up with it. “My costume?”

“You’re a mourning widow, and I am,” he gestured at the dark silk once again draped over his face, “your poor disfigured brother-in-law. Injured in the very same tragic accident that took your late husband from us, I’m afraid.”

“Is that so?”

“The veil will obscure your face should the doctor, or anyone else, catch a glimpse of us.” 

“That’s quite devious.”

“I hope it is not too much of a subterfuge for your taste?”

Christine pulled the dress--a deep matte black with a row of delicate buttons down the front--from its bag and spread it over the sofa. She looked it over, smoothing out some slight wrinkles, and nodded. “So long as it doesn’t result in any violence, I don’t see the harm in a little play-acting.” 

She took the dress to the bedroom and changed. Her hair she pulled up into a tight, twisting style, entirely unlike the flowing curls she usually wore. When she emerged, she asked Erik to help her straighten the veil, and the two of them, a pair of somber black-clad mourners, were ready to depart. 

The carriage was just large enough that they could sit opposite one another, their knees brushing as the wheels rolled over uneven cobblestones. It was enclosed, and the windows had dark curtains. When they were closed there was barely enough light to see by inside the cramped space. 

Dr. Marcel’s asylum was a rather diminutive building for its purpose, containing what looked to be a few dozen rooms spread over two floors. It sat on a quiet city street, and Erik asked the carriage driver to wait along the opposite side. Before he stepped out, he asked Christine to stay in the carriage, no matter what might happen. 

“Should the doctor recognize you, all of this will be for naught.”

Christine agreed, although it made her feel useless. At least this way she would know if something went wrong. 

Erik approached the building with all the nonchalance of a gentleman on a midmorning stroll. He wandered his way around one side, and then the other. He snuck glances at windows, doors, anything, Christine imagined, that might provide some entry, or a hiding place for one of his fiery tricks. She hated to think of it, of the Phantom’s games of terror and grief being acted out with her endorsement. But what else was there to do? What other plot that didn’t end in misery for herself, for Erik, for God knows who else?

As Erik looped around for a closer pass of the front of the property, a squat man in a beige suit opened the door. Christine squinted through the sliver of curtain she dared to open. Her blood raced in her veins, thumping in her chest. It was Dr. Marcel. 

Erik, for his part, seemed to greet him warmly, although Christine could not hear the words exchanged. They had a short conversation, during which Erik, at one point, gestured in the direction of the carriage, and Christine closed the curtain like a child with her hand caught stealing the after-supper sweets. By the time she braved another glance, Erik was being led through the door of the unassuming building. 

Christine was at a loss. She waited for what could have minutes or seconds, her eyes boring into the door, as though her stare might open it if she willed it with enough might. 

An idea struck her, and she opened the carriage door, calling up to the driver. 

“Excuse me, sir? Can you check if my fr-- my brother, will be much longer in his meeting. I must return home within the hour.”

“Not allowed to leave the carriage, Madame. Especially with an unaccompanied lady inside.”

“It should only take a minute!”

“I’m sorry. I’m sure he’ll be out in no time.”

Christine decided pressing the issue would only raise questions she wasn’t prepared to answer, so she sat back in her seat. She closed her eyes and tried not to think of the things that could go wrong. Tried not to imagine for whom she was more worried, the Doctor or the Phantom.

After what must have been a half an hour, Christine, still nervously peering through the curtain, saw Erik emerge. He tipped his hat, bowed slightly, and made his way in no particular hurry to the carriage.

He hit the side twice, a sign for the driver to take them on their way, and when he climbed inside, he changed entirely. While he’d seemed in good spirits leaving the cursed place, Erik now sat hunched. He looked away from Christine, and his hands at his sides curled and uncurled from fists. 

When the carriage safely pulled them away, Christine spoke. “Erik, are you all right? What happened?”

His jaw clenched. He did not answer right away, and when he did the words were forced, as tense as he was. 

“He invited me in to discuss the facilities. Because he believed they could be of great help to my poor brother’s widow”.

“He wanted you for a customer?”

Erik nodded. “In his defense, I did suggest it.” He still did not look at her. “I told them you were seeing visions of your late husband, that I worried for your sanity, and he outlined all manner of treatments and medical marvels that would cure such a thing. It all sounded like some torture dreamed up by a carnival man. Locked up, thrown in icy water, electricity to shock the madness from your mind.”

Christine imagined those things. She wondered how long before she would admit to any madness in such a place. “It sounds awful.”

“I might’ve killed him. Might’ve ended this whole ordeal with his own neck-tie.” His hands were open now, shaking as his fingers gripped at the edge of the seat. 

Christine felt a tinge of familiar fright. “Are you upset because you didn’t?”

His eyes shot open, and he looked at her desperately. “No! No--I. I’m upset because I could have done it so easily, and a man who would do those things is a man who frightens you.” He looked down again, seemingly to steady himself. “I do not wish to be such a man.”

Christine stared at him. She took in the sight of this monster-turned-man, she closed the short distance where their knees brushed one another, and she kissed him. 

Erik stiffened with shock at first, his gasp interrupted by Christine’s mouth on his. She cupped his jaw and pulled back. She searched his eyes and saw only a disbelieving wonder. 

He was panting, although he’d hardly moved. 

“Christine, why?”

For an answer, she kissed him again, and this time he returned it, clutching at her waist and pulling her toward him like a drowning man gasps for air. 

\---

The two of them kept their wits about them as they waved the carriage driver off. They made the walk back to Erik’s makeshift home at a reasonable pace, while keeping a respectable distance by Christine’s measure.

When they got inside and closed the door behind them, the air was charged. Christine felt like she was being pulled on some invisible track, like her skin crackled with the need to be near his. 

Again, she closed the distance and kissed him, and now he wasted no time, his arms enveloping her in response. Her hands slid over the sides of his face, one smooth except for a hint of stubble, the other shrouded in delicate silk. He took a step forward, crowding her back against the door, kissing her in earnest now. Their breathing came in short bursts when their mouths parted, only to dive back hungrily for more. His hands traveled up, his fingers in her hair, which had begun to come loose from their efforts. He trailed down again, his fingertips brushed her jaw, then her neck, and, and--

It was hardly the pressure that did it. His fingers wrapped around her neck carefully, tenderly, but the sensation of it, the sight of his eye, gazing at her with some kind of abandon, made her mind flicker with the memory of his pained glee as Raoul begged for her release, of struggling on the ground against his grip. She knew, she knew, that this specter was not--in the ways that mattered--the Erik who held her now, but the thought made the sights and sounds of it rush around her, disorienting, making her feel out of time. Trapped and free-falling at once.

Erik took a moment to register her panic, but when he did he let her go immediately. Her fingers were curled tight around the fabric of his jacket, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to push him further away or grip him tighter.

“I don’t--I’m sorry.” Her breathing came in short gasps, and she struggled to say what she meant. “It’s too much, I--”

He looked frightened, and that made Christine feel worse, more absurd. He wrapped his hands around hers, pulled them from his jacket and held them gently. “What are you sorry for? Christine, what’s wrong?”

She shook her head, unable to answer. “I can’t--I can’t.” She broke away, and nearly ran to the bedroom, leaving Erik alone to wonder if she wasn’t mad after all.

\---

Christine sat alone for hours, trying to read, taking down her hair, arranging and rearranging the items stowed in the trunk, trying to clear her mind. Erik had knocked once, twice, asking if she needed anything, if he had done something wrong. She told him she needed time, and that it wasn’t his fault. But the latter wasn’t true, was it? Even if Erik was a new man, he couldn’t undo what he’d done, no more than Christine could wipe it from her memory. She could care for him, beyond pity, beyond gratitude, and still never be truly free of the fear that etched itself in her bones.

Eventually she drifted into a fitful sleep, wishing both that she were anywhere else, and that Erik would come through the door and hold her. 

In the night, Christine dreamt of touching him. 

She awoke some hours later, feeling almost out of breath, gripping the sheets like a lover. Her skin tingled with that same feeling of electricity she had felt before memories overtook her. Christine tried, but could not will herself back to sleep. She still felt the reverberations of the fear that had struck her earlier, but now her desire to be near him was tugging at her in the opposite direction. 

She didn’t bother with her dressing gown as she crept out of the bedroom with her lamp, clad only in her chemise and drawers. The door opened silently, and she found Erik asleep on the sofa, still in his trousers and shirt with that same slip of silk over his face. She kneeled by him, traced her hands under his chin, over his brow--relaxed but still somehow tinged with worry--along a smooth cheekbone. He stirred, and his eye widened as he made out her shape in the darkness. 

“Christine..?” he said groggily, and sat up. Christine stood, planting her feet on the floor between his, and took one of his hands in hers.

“Can I--” she couldn’t be sure what exactly she was asking for.

Erik was silent enough that Christine thought he’d stopped breathing. Finally, in an effort that seemed to take all the air from his lungs, he replied, “Anything.”

She lifted a leg, planting her knee on the sofa, and slid into his lap. He inhaled sharply, and his hands rested tentatively on her thighs. Christine kissed him, and the hands traveled up her hips, to her waist and--

Christine pulled back. She grabbed Erik’s wrists and pulled them away. He didn’t resist, and she held his hands on either side of his head. “Don’t, I--” she released his wrists, and he kept his hands away from her as though she burned him. “Just let me--for now.”

Unblinking, he nodded, just a quick drop of his chin, like if he did anything more she might disappear into smoke. 

She kissed him again, this time letting her mouth trail down his neck. Her hands caressed his jaw, slid down his shoulders. She pulled away, started working at the buttons on his shirt as Erik stared back, mouth slightly open, the pupil of his visible eye blown wide. 

Her hands continued to explore as more skin was exposed. Her mouth followed, tasting his collarbone, testing her teeth lightly on one shoulder. His breath hissed at that, but he didn’t move. She tugged at his shirt, and he obligingly pulled his arms free of the sleeves, one after the other. She took one of his hands, kissed the palm, drew the fingertips over her lips. He watched her and shuddered, a ripple from his neck to his abdomen. 

He glanced down, breathed through his nose. “Do I dream?” he asked as if he were afraid to know the answer.

Christine leaned in. She slid her fingers beneath the silk that hid his face from her and pulled it away. Both of his eyes now gazed up at her in wonder, and she asked, “Does it feel like a dream?”

“Better.” 

She let his hand go, and he dutifully placed it back on the sofa, his fingers pressing into the cushion as he resisted the urge to touch her. 

As she continued her exploration of his upper body, Christine would occasionally tilt her hips against him in a way that made her moan high in her throat. In Erik’s lap was a hardness that she recognized. Occasionally she and Raoul had spent evenings kissing and petting at one another, and he would be wound up to such a state, although the two of them had respected the sanctity of the marriage bed too much to acknowledge it. 

Now though, thoughts of reputation and purity were drowned out by the current under her skin telling her to chase the friction beneath her, telling her to map as much of Erik’s skin as she could touch.

Erik sat back through it all, letting her touch, letting her taste anything she pleased, only arching to catch her in a kiss when her mouth strayed too close. She returned his kisses and found her hips moving against his in a rhythm guided by an urgent, rising tempo. Erik moaned into her mouth, and she decided she needed more.

Chrstine maneuvered herself to sit next to him on the sofa. Her fingers traveled down his abdomen to the top of his trousers, hooking just inside the waistband.

“Can we,” she looked up at him, sliding her hand back and forth where it rested between fabric and flesh, “get rid of this?”

Erik looked dazed. He stared into her eager eyes for a long moment before his hands, finally rising from where they had been planted at his side, began working at the buttons. 

The sparse trail of hair that led from his navel filled out into dark curls where his trousers opened. Christine nudged the fabric lower, and finally Erik tugged them down his thighs. 

His manhood emerged, flush with blood and stiff enough that it jutted out into the calm night air. Christine gawked at it a moment, taking in the sight like a cat who’s caught a mouse but doesn’t yet know what to do with it. 

A needy sound escaped Erik’s throat, and that broke Christine from her reverie enough that she reached out.

“Can I?”

“Please.” came the reply, desperate in a way she had never heard from him.

Christine wrapped her hand around the length, gave an experimental squeeze, and Erik clawed at the upholstery. “Show me? Teach me how you…”

Mustering what looked to be the last scrap of his composure, Erik wrapped his hand around hers. He used more pressure than she would have guessed, and began guiding their strokes, slow at first, gaining speed as his breaths rose to meet them.

Christine nuzzled his neck, catching glimpses of his face when he would gasp or moan for her. “Let me,” she said into his ear, and he let go. She kept the pace and before long he was panting, his head thrown back. 

“Christine--oh,” His eyes screwed shut. “I’m nearly finished.” 

She maintained their tempo, kissing his heck, his jaw, until he stiffened all over and his release splattered over his stomach. 

Erik laid back, murmuring words of awe and disbelief between breaths. Christine smiled back at him, feeling more than a little smug about the degree to which he was undone. 

Eventually he reached out to his jacket draped over the back of the sofa and rummaged in its pockets, pulling out a handkerchief. He took Christine’s hand and wiped it clean before tending to his own mess. 

Christine hooked a leg over his, bringing her body flush against him. “Do you want,” she asked, barely more than a whisper in his ear, “to touch me?”

“More than anything in this world,” he said, still catching his breath. 

Christine stood once more, stepping out of her drawers, leaving only the thin fabric of her chemise loosely brushing over her skin. This was as naked as she’d ever been in front of a man, and the thought of it sent a thrill fluttering through her core. Erik watched her, and then hurriedly pulled his own trousers up enough to appease a modicum of modesty.

The sight of him, his chest still rising and falling with some effort, fly undone and clinging loose to his hips, did not make Christine feel modest. 

“Can I show you?”

Erik apparently could not find the words, but he nodded pleadingly. He straightened his back, attention focused completely on her. 

She straddled one leg, hovering just over his mid thigh. She leaned in, trailed a hand down his chest, over his ribs, his stomach, until it tickled the fine hairs of her bare thigh. From there, her fingers moved agonizingly slowly until they slipped under the hem of her chemise. She grazed over the dark curls between her legs, felt heat and wet on her fingers. She pressed down and let herself fall forward with the sensation, bracing herself on Erik’s shoulder, a helpless little moan breathed into his ear.

“Oh Christine…” Erik's voice was low, rough and fragile at once. “Show me, please show me.”

She leaned back and began moving her hand in earnest, still hidden beneath a shroud of cloth, but the rhythm, the syncopated movement of her hips was obvious. Erik stared, focused so intently he hardly noticed when she took his hand. 

His attention did shift when she drew her tongue over the pads of his fingers. He inhaled sharply, his hips bucking despite his current state. 

Guiding his hand between her legs, her own ceased its ministrations and pressed his in its place. His fingers, stiff at first, grew slick as she showed them how to move. 

Erik looked relieved and pained, shocked and soothed all at once. He whispered curses, affirmations, pleas between ragged breaths. Christine’s hips swayed to meet their strokes, drawing needy sounds from her throat. She chased the sensation, the jolts of pleasure that radiated from the press of flesh at the meeting of her thighs, but it wasn’t enough. 

She slid down his leg, away from Erik’s increasingly confident hand, and he looked confused until she turned and leaned back against him. She wrapped his arm around her, pressing him flush against her sex again, this time drawing back her own hand and letting his take over entirely. The angle was better; his fingers were strong and sure against her. She cried out now with abandon, and he buried his face in the back of her neck, inhaling deeply, shuddering against her. 

“Oh, God, Erik,” she cradled his head where it lay against her, “it’s good, you’re so good...”

“Tell me, Christine. Speak to me, tell me.”

Christine took his free hand and guided it under her chemise, and it sent sparks over her skin. Following her lead, he cupped one of her breasts, one peaked nipple catching on his fingers and hitching her breath.

She turned her head, speaking low against his cheek. “Inside me,” she said, and shifted down against him as encouragement, “put one of your fingers inside me.”

She felt him nod, and one digit slid tentatively down into her wetness. It was _slick_ and _easy_ and it made her sigh, like her body could melt into his without complaint. 

“Yes, keep going,” she said, and he shifted lower on the sofa, reaching, sliding deeper.

They kept on like that, his hand working tirelessly, her sighs and soft encouragements filling the air around them, until an inexorable tension began to build in the places their bodies met.

His fingers continued working inside her, and she reached down, rubbing at the place between her folds, the two of them working in tandem until her back arched. A moan so sharp it was almost a scream escaped her throat, and she rode wave after wave of release as Erik clutched her against him. 

When her senses returned, Erik was panting nearly as hard as she was. She moved off his lap, sitting on the sofa but leaving her legs draped over his. She put her hand under his chin, nudging him to look at her.

“Erik,” she said, head swimming as though she’d had too much champagne, but confident in the truth of it regardless, “I love you.”

He stared back at her, dumbfounded once more by her existence, and there was a distinct glassiness in his eyes. But, if any tears fell, Christine did not see them as Erik pressed his mouth to hers. 

His hands were careful now as they explored her body. Never too much pressure, never lingering too long, just brushes against her legs, her hips. He grazed her arms and caressed her face, and Christine felt comforted, secure. Her heart raced, but it was excitement, it was yearning for more. 

Under her legs she felt his manhood stirring back to life, and the thought made her stomach jump. As they kissed, she snaked her hand into his trousers, teasing at him, testing his interest, which earned her a hiss and his hips moving into her touch. 

“Oh Christine,” he sighed, “my angel…”

He bent forward and tugged his trousers completely off, and Christine took in the sight of him, all of him now. It only made her hunger more ravenous.

She slipped just out of his grip and in one motion took her chemise by the hem and pulled it over her head. Erik stared, awestruck. When she pulled him to her again, he reached out, a question in his eyes, and she nodded. His hands, his deft fingers, explored with intent now. Followed the dip of her waist to her ribs, to her chest. He held her breasts, grazed his thumbs over her nipples and catalogued the noises she made in response. He kissed her throughout, on the mouth, the neck, the shoulders.

Christine thought she could spend a whole year like this and never tire of it. 

Erik gazed up at her. “Would you let me taste you?”

Christine froze, but not of fear. It wasn’t fear coiling in her belly just now, but a consideration of all that the question entailed. She shivered to imagine it. 

“Yes.”

A new flame ignited in Erik’s eyes, and so his asymmetrical kisses moved lower. He paid considerable attention to her breasts, testing his lips, his tongue, and--lightly--his teeth, on one, then the other, before continuing his descent. He reached her navel and maneuvered himself down off the sofa, kneeling between her parted thighs. 

She whined at the sensation of his breath tickling her dark curls as his face lowered to her sex. His lips brushed at her folds, and she resisted the urge to push back, to force him against her with the pressure she wanted. Finally his mouth opened, hot and wet to match her. His tongue swiped over her and she cried out. He reached up to wrap his arms around her thighs, holding her in place against him, and he licked her again. Her hips did lean into it this time, all but begging him for more, and he obliged her. 

This was _different_ than his hand had been. The pressure was less, but his tongue was nimble, it seemed to envelope her with each lap. He quickened his pace, sucking and licking at her until she thought she might cry from how _much_ she felt all at once. 

The rhythm faltered, and Christine only had a moment to wonder before he slid a finger into her, curling it _up_ and dragging his tongue over her at a measured pace. Christine clutched at the cushions around her, hips moving of their own accord now, matching his movements with her own. 

“Erik, Erik, please.”

He lifted his head, the lower half of his face shiny and slick from _her_. “Tell me. Tell me what you want.”

“Take me to bed.”

Erik moved quickly, ducking from between her legs and sliding one arm under her knees. The other hooked itself under her shoulders, and in a smooth motion he lifted her as though she weighed nothing.

He carried her through to the bedroom, and distantly it occured to Christine that this was _not_ a marriage bed, that she wasn’t meant to encourage this. But above that, louder and more insistent, was the knowledge that the need, the _want_ she felt now was more intense than any wedding night she’d dared to imagine. 

The blankets were cool on her bare skin, contrasting with the heat radiating from Erik as he joined her. He had placed her on the bed gently and dropped down over her, bracing himself on both arms. The evidence of his arousal pressed against her hip, and Christine pulled him down to bring their bodies flush against one another. They traded kisses on necks and collarbones, both of them growing increasingly desperate as they all but clawed at each other. 

“I want you, Erik.”

“You--you…” The desire he felt for her was plain as notes on a page, but he hesitated as though all of this might still disappear.

Christine positioned herself under him completely so that his length, straining and heavy, pressed against her mound. “Please,” she whispered.

“Oh, Christine,” he said before crashing their mouths together, letting the kisses grow messy and desperate as they traveled hurriedly over her neck and chest. Finally he pulled back and took himself in hand, guiding the tip of his length to her entrance. Christine whined for the want of it. He looked into her eyes, searching for one final permission, which she gave as a silent nod, and-- _Oh_ , he slid into her. It was too much and too slow at once. Her body said _yes_ and _more_ as she struggled to categorize the sensation. When he was in to the hilt Christine let out a cry so tortured that Erik froze. “Are you--is it all right?”

“Oh Erik,” she reached out, clung to his arms on either side of her, “It’s good, it’s so good. Please move.”

With relief washing over his face, he did. Watching his body as he worked himself out, then in, his shoulders straining, his abdomen tensing with each slow thrust, was an experience all its own. Christine watched in a daze as sensation flooded her core, building an impossible heat between them. He began to speed up, and Chrstine planted her feet on the mattress, angling herself up to meet his thrusts. She cried out with abandon, and Erik moaned, occasionally speaking sweet, loving things into her ear with his low, exertion-ragged voice. 

Christine had hardly registered the motion of his hips growing shallower when she looked to find Erik’s hand where their bodies joined. His thumb slid between her folds and started moving in small circles over her flesh. “Like this?” he asked, heavy-lidded and hopeful.

“Yes, yes, like that,” and she moaned as he rocked in and out of her, keeping pace with his thumb. “Oh please keep doing that.”

He did, and soon the feeling of it wound her up so tight that she felt the release of it like a crescendo through her entire body. She wrapped her legs around Erik, holding him deep inside her as she rode out the last spasms of it. 

Her limbs were limp, and Chrstine felt as though she might sink straight through the mattress. Erik on the other hand, shook with tension. He looked at her appreciatively, but his body longed to _move_ , so Christine raised her hips to him again. 

He took the hint, and before long his thrusts grew fast and punishing. It was almost too much, but Christine chased it, meeting him at the crest of each one. She wanted it too badly to rein him in.

Erik’s pace faltered, and he threw his hands under her thighs, pulling her off of him as much as him from her. The wet splash of his release hit Christine’s belly, and even that elicited a sound from her, once again seeing him completely undone.

He collapsed next to her, panting and looking, for once, like he wasn’t afraid she might be gone the moment he closed his eyes. She smiled at him and drew a finger over the uneven flesh of his brow, down to his chin. He swung an arm over her shoulders, hugging her loosely, and smiled back.

When they slept, sometime later, it was in each other’s arms.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The thrilling (?) conclusion. (5th chapter is/will be an epilogue)

Christine did not think much of it when she awoke and he wasn’t at her side. She had yet to see him stick to any schedule regarding sleep, so she only rose and threw her dressing gown over her bare skin. 

Erik sat at his organ. He was dressed, but without care, his shirt wrinkled and unbuttoned to the middle of his chest. He played, but every tune sounded as though it were missing notes. Melodies were left unresolved as he began something new, jabbing at the keys with a languid irritation. 

Christine approached him, tried to catch his eye, but he did not look. 

“Erik?”

He glanced in her direction, but his gaze stayed on the floor, his fingers still hitting keys. 

She took a step, reached out a hand, but didn’t quite touch him. “Erik? What is it?”

His jaw clenched, he hit a wrong note, and stopped playing altogether. “Was last night pity, Christine?”

She was too shocked to respond, and he continued.

“If it was, no one should blame you. I can live with it, but I would rather know.”

She tried to put her hands on him, but he flinched away, only barely, but enough to stop her. “What are you talking about?” 

“You’re too kind-hearted, Christine. You see a sorry creature before you and you long to help him. It’s your nature.”

She drew back. “You think everything I--everything we did last night was out of some misguided pity?” Aggravation crept into her voice, and she made little attempt to hide it.

“What else should I think?” He did face her now, his demeanor a thin veneer of charitable understanding. “I’m not angry. You did it from kindness, but I don’t expect you to commit yourself to repeating it.”

“Don’t you tell me why I did something! How would you know, more than I?”

“Please, I didn’t mean--”

“I had never slept with a man, Erik. Not Raoul, not anyone. And you think last night was a whim of girlish sympathy?”

His eyes widened, and he raised his hands. “No one would have to know what we--your reputation would be safe. I wouldn’t tell.”

Christine _laughed_ , biting and mean, in his face. “Oh, of course. So long as no one knows, then I can just sweep it all under the rug, no harm done?”

He was troubled at least, by that, and she got a sort of grim satisfaction from it. 

“Tell me then. Tell me it wasn’t pity.”

“If I need to, you’re a bigger fool than I could have imagined.”

Erik looked wounded, but Christine was too angry to reassure him.

She returned to the bedroom and shut the door behind her. She considered locking it just to make a point, but--no. She wasn’t afraid of him, she was frustrated. Another person telling her what she was feeling, trying to convince her that her own thoughts betrayed her. She wouldn’t tolerate it, not after everything. 

She dressed, and the ritual of it did help to calm her roiling mind somewhat. When she emerged again, he still sat at the organ, the occasional note ringing out as he stewed in his own thoughts.

“I’m going to make some tea. Please join me so we can talk about this.”

Erik looked at her skeptically, the perpetual sadness in his eyes seeming deeper than it had been in recent days. He did wait for her at the table as she heated the water. Ordering her thoughts as she waited, she took the kettle when it whistled and sat with him. 

“I don’t appreciate being told what I think, and I thought you understood that.”

“I don’t mean too--” She held up a hand.

“Whether you meant to or not, I won’t--” this time he interrupted, his head turning suddenly to the door, tilting so that he might hear.

“What is it?”

Without answering, Erik stood and went to the door, pressing his ear to the seam. He held a finger to his mouth, signalling that she should stay quiet. After a moment, he backed away and returned to her, urgent but still silent. He beckoned her to follow him across the room to the locked door she had found that first morning. He pulled a key from his pocket and said in a low whisper, “There are men outside, at least three, possibly more. Sounds as though some are police, and if I’m not mistaken, our friend Dr. Marcel is with them.”

Her heart was pounding. She gripped his arm, stifled a cry. “How did they find us? What do we do?” she asked, hurried and breathy. 

There was a _bang_ on the front door, and the voices, still indistinct, were now loud enough to hear across the room.

“It’s difficult to say, but first, we do this,” Erik said, and the lock opened with its audible click. He gestured for her to enter and followed immediately, locking the door behind him. 

She found herself in a room of waist high tables and crates with all manner of symbols stamped on their sides. As Erik lit one lamp, then another, she noticed strange stains, scorch marks, and evidence of wear she couldn’t begin to guess at. 

“Is this a laboratory?”

He looked around, by all accounts only half listening to her as he searched the space. “In a manner of speaking. It’s a sort of auxiliary space for the university, and I liberated a few materials I could find use for.”

Christine jumped as there was another bang from the next room. “Is there a way out?”

“Unfortunately I had to seal up the additional exits to prevent entry from prying eyes in the main building. But don’t count us out yet!”

There was another bang, a crashing, and this time they could hear the voices from the next room. 

“Surrender yourself, Phantom! We’ve found you out!” It was Dr. Marcel, and the police spoke amongst themselves as they spread through the space. 

Erik, apparently unperturbed, grabbed a coat from a coat rack, throwing it on and gathering things from the crates around the room.

Dr. Marcel’s voice again boomed from the living room. “No use playing coy, I’m afraid. You carriage driver ratted you out, and it turns out you’re quite a memorable figure in this neighborhood: the poor man who covers his face.”

Another voice followed, low at first, chastising. And then: “Phantom! If you have Christine, let her go, and we might end this peaceably.” 

Christine gasped, and looked to Erik as his own recognition flashed across his face. 

It was Raoul.

Erik paused his collection and went to her. “It’s not too late for you, Christine. If you tell them I took you, you might still return to some semblance of your old life. Say the word, and I’ll let you go.”

She watched the door, dread welling up in her chest. “No! No, Erik. I’m not leaving you.”

He seemed genuinely shocked, and that sent a pang through Christine’s heart. He recovered, however, and uncovered a heavy black cloak. He threw it over Christine’s shoulders as she looked at him, puzzled. 

“Wrap this around you as best you can.” He stood at the wall, next to the door and motioned for her to join him. “Christine, I will get us out of here. I need you to trust me.”

“I do,” she said, and hardly believed how easily the words came. 

He pressed himself against the wall, and listened. After a minute, he turned to her and nodded. 

At once, he swung open the door, and Christine only just held in her shriek as a policeman came barreling through it, carrying a large object he must have been using for a battering ram. Erik threw one of the devices he’d stored in his jacket pockets out into the living room, and there was the sound of an explosion, of flames. He pulled the two of them out the door, closing it behind them and leaving the first policeman on the other side. Christine saw three more immediately, and Dr Marcel standing some distance behind them. Erik threw two more of the devices, and after a bang and flash of flame, smoke began filling the space. A gunshot rang out, the bullet going wild, and voices yelled in the confusion. 

Erik spun on his heels and lifted Christine into his arms--not entirely unlike he had the night before--and charged the two of them in the direction of the exit. Christine ducked her head against his chest, shielding her eyes from the smoke. She thought they must be nearly out when Erik stopped suddenly.

“Stop there, Phantom!” It was Raoul, standing in the space between them and the door and holding a pistol in their direction.

“Raoul, no!” Christine pulled back the hood of the cloak, revealing her face. Raoul stared back at her, the pistol wavering in his confusion. “Don’t shoot him, please.” She tried to appeal to whatever love he might still have for her. 

He did not fire, only stood and stared at her. “I’m sorry,” she said, and turned away from him, unable to look as his searching face turned to hurt, to betrayal. 

“Erik, go!” Her arms wrapped around his neck, freeing his hand long enough to take one more device from his pocket and throw it at Raoul’s feet. The Viscount jumped back, and with that opening, Erik swept the two of them through the door. 

Erik set her down and doubled back. He reached his hand inside just a moment, and then pulled the door shut. He then took her hand, and the two of them ran to the street, no one following behind. They found an empty carriage, presumably Dr. Marcel’s, attended only by a single driver. Erik climbed onto it and grabbed the man by the collar before he knew what happened. Snarling viciously, Erik threw him to the ground. The man scurried back begging mercy. Erik took up the reins, and Chrstine sat next to him. 

As they rode off, Christine grabbed Erik by the arm. “The fire! Erik, you closed the door behind us, what if--”

“There is a fire suppression system rigged throughout the university, including auxiliary space. I activated it before I closed the door on our unwelcome guests. The worst they’ll suffer is a little smoke in their lungs and a sopping wet outfit.”

She let out a single laugh, surprising herself. He was careful, even now.

They left the carriage several streets away and took up the rest of their escape on foot. Within the hour, Christine found them standing at Madame Giry’s doorstep. She let them in quickly, quietly, and left them alone in the sitting room as she went to retrieve the documents Erik requested.

“Is this wise?” 

“We won’t stay long. Giry can provide us with what we need to leave the city.” 

“Leave Paris?” Christine asked, although it made sense. Of course they couldn’t stay here, but the thought of leaving this place, this city she had come to call her own, was still a shock to her.

He looked at her, a fond smile softening his eyes. “You could share your voice with the world. Anywhere you’d like to go.”

Christine blushed, and this time she felt a swell of excitement at the thought.

She held his gaze a long moment and leaned in close. “You know I don’t pity you Erik,” she reached out, touched his face, and he leaned into it so lightly that she might just as easily have missed it. “I’m not going to promise now to be with you forever, not out of pity or anything else.” His eyebrows came together, a cloud of worry cast over him. “Both because I refuse to feel like I must, and because I don’t think such a promise would bear the weight of your scrutiny.”

“Christine, I--” She held a finger to his mouth.

“I want you to understand that each day I am with you, I’ve made a choice to be there. That no matter how well you know me, you cannot make my decisions for me or understand them more than I.”

He looked at her, and it was with a clarity she found refreshing. He did not find words to respond, but nodded at her, solemn and honest.

“I still think you’re a fool,” she said, and let her hands fall to rest on his lapels, “but I believe you possess enough sense to see what’s in front of you, no matter what the tortured memories inside you might say. Am I wrong?”

“I see you, Christine,” and he closed the distance between them.

-End-


	5. -Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A sexy post-script. (i.e., just a little more porn to really round it out.)

_Some years later._

London audiences were different from Parisians, in some ways. They sometimes applauded when she didn’t expect, and--perhaps it was in her head, or from the language not being her first--the material, in presentation, or staging, or content seemed to have the passion trimmed away. But they paid her, and the crowd cheered when the company made their bows, and flowers now graced the door of her dressing room more nights than not. 

She was singing; she was _part_ of something again. She had friends and acquaintances, and even a few fans. Christine stepped off the stage, removing her heavy wig before even making it to her dressing room. The performance went well. The manager bowed to her as she walked by, and she smiled at him sweetly. 

She had her own dressing room, specially chosen by her and stipulated when she renewed her contract the previous year. It was quite an ask, but she promised them a performance to back it up, and had delivered.

Once inside, she began peeling away the layers of costume. The exaggerated skirts fell to the floor; the jewelry that sparkled all the way to the balcony slid from her wrists, her neck. As she sat at her mirror brushing out her hair in her corset and underthings, a voice called to her. It filled the small room.

“You were magnificent.”

She smiled to herself in the mirror. “The show went well, didn’t it?”

In the reflection she saw a dark shadow of a figure emerge from behind a rack holding the week’s costumes. The voice continued.

“The show was fine. Louisa hit her notes this time.”

She turned to look over her shoulder. “Be nice.”

In a fluid motion, Erik stepped out of the shadows to stand behind her. He wore his formal suit, a hat pulled low on his forehead, and a half-mask sculpted to hug his face, painted to match the color of his flesh. He loomed in their reflection, his hands draped over her shoulders posessively. He bent to speak into her ear. “ _You_ were magnificent. You elevate the show.” 

“I think they like to hear me speak more than they like to hear me sing.” She joked, but It was a little true. She was somewhat of a French novelty, a mysterious Parisian singer, unmarried and unknown until discovered so recently. There was gossip about her, hushed whispers as she passed, but none of it resembled the gossip that surrounded Christine Daaé. She was Genevieve now, and the new rumors suited her story just as well. 

“Fools. Ignorant masses.” Erik drew her hair back from her neck and pressed his mouth to the open space. Christine’s eyes drifted shut as she leaned into him. 

“Are you saying you _don’t_ like to hear me speak?” she teased.

Erik’s hand grazed her collarbone, her chest, and it traveled down the boning of her corset until reaching her thigh. He squeezed through the thin fabric of her chemise, and a noise escaped Christine’s throat, high and quick and pleading.

“I appreciate _every_ sound you make, my dear.”

She turned from the mirror to look at him now, his face inches from hers. “Do you have a favorite?”

Erik stepped back and held out his hand, his fingers curling invitingly. Christine rose and took it, following him the few steps before they reached the far wall. Erik stepped around her, drawing her in a circle until her back was pressed against the wallpaper. He dipped his head and began lavishing kisses on her neck, her collarbone, sucking and biting so lightly that the tease of it made Christine whine, soft and breathy.

His hands wrapped around her waist, and his face came back into view. “Impossible to say, but that one’s on the list.”

Christine bit her lip, looked up at him through her eyelashes.

A sound like a growl came from Erik’s throat, and he felt his way down the corset, over her hips, and under the hem of her underclothes. His fingers brushed the inside of her thighs, and Christine moved to encourage him. When he pressed _up_ and started rocking his hand against her, she let out a moan. 

“That one, too.”

He kept at it, drawing moans and gasps from her, occasionally catching them with his mouth against hers. He paused only to slide one, then two fingers inside of her, letting her move against him as she clung to his jacket. Within minutes she was on the crest of the wave, and came crashing down with her face pressed into his shoulder to stifle her cry. 

Erik held her through it, and afterward continued touching, petting her wherever his hands found purchase. They would have to get home eventually, but he wasn’t done yet. 

Christine let her own hands wander, slipping under his jacket and tugging at his shirt so that she might reach skin. She met him for another kiss and--there was a knock at the door. 

Christine put a finger to her lips, and Erik backed away immediately. He stood out of eye-line from the door, and Christine cracked it open. It was the manager. 

“Genevieve, do you have a moment to discuss the schedule of shows next week? I may need someone to take Amelia’s place and--”

“I’m a bit indecent at the moment, Monsieur. Can we discuss this before I leave? I shouldn’t be much longer.”

“Oh! Oh dear, of course, Miss.” He tipped his hat as she closed the door on him. 

Erik looked to her with an unspoken question. She nodded at him to return, and he did so, placing one hand on the back of her head and tipping it up.

“Where were we?” 

“I was about to make a compelling argument for silence,” she said, and began working at the buttons of his trousers. 

The lust in his eyes now was a fire, burning hot in his gaze as he watched her. She reached in and stroked at his stiffening length. His eyes fell closed, and she went to her knees. 

She tugged at his pants until he sprung from them, fully hard and ready for her. She stroked him up and down, lightly at first. 

“Oh, Christine…”

She locked eyes with him and didn’t say a word as her tongue tasted the tip of his manhood. 

He groaned, and she took it in her mouth. She worked her hand in tandem, and the wet, vulgar sounds of it were all that could be heard in the small room. 

Erik put his hands in her hair, but he didn’t make an effort to move her or adjust her pace. He merely held on like she was the only thing tethering him to the earth. 

“Ah, Oh--Christine, I’m going to--” and Christine gripped him tighter, catching his release on her tongue and swallowing it. 

She let him go, and looked up to see him, only barely recovered, holding out his handkerchief. She took it and wiped her hands and face. 

“Did that make the list?” She asked with a coquettish smile. 

He tucked himself away discreetly. “I think it’s on a different list entirely.” He held out his hand, helping her to her feet. “You’ll be home soon?” 

“Should be,” she said, and handed Erik pieces of her dress, which he helped her into. “Do wait up for me.”

He kissed her on the hand, chaste and tender. “I shall,” he murmured, and retreated back to the shadows.


End file.
